The ground crew, in­clud­ing our lo­gis­tics team and the tech teams, had be­gun pre-plan­ning the dis­mount­ing and de-com­mis­sion­ing of the key in­stal­la­tions in ad­vance to the ac­tu­al shut down date.

This was the Dri­ve Through and Walk In Mass Vac­ci­na­tion site at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um in Cou­va. An ini­tia­tive of the PRO­MAN In­dus­tries and the MoH.

The teams from the com­mand cen­tre, the med­ical ser­vices, event man­age­ment, se­cu­ri­ty, vol­un­teers and Task Force mem­bers were all a bit sad­dened to re­alise that it was com­ing to a close. This was six weeks of high tem­po, high vol­ume and full throt­tle op­er­a­tions in all types of weath­er, in­ter­fac­ing with large, medi­um and small crowds. It was an ex­pe­ri­ence that will def­i­nite­ly be etched on the tablets of my mem­o­ry as one of the best op­er­a­tions I have co­or­di­nat­ed in my ca­reer, and there were many.

The ex­ec­u­tive task force of PRO­MAN de­ci­sion mak­ers was an ex­cel­lent com­bi­na­tion of ex­perts from var­i­ous fields and sec­tors of man­age­ment. To­geth­er, they for­mu­lat­ed a plan, per­fect­ed a mod­el and im­pressed a foot­print of ex­cel­lence. Well done task force.

We ran this op­er­a­tion on a ro­bust ICT back­bone. Our in­for­ma­tion man­age­ment sys­tems (IMS), which in­clud­ed con­tin­u­ous da­ta en­try and sys­tems in­te­gra­tion with the na­tion­al grid, proved the ef­fi­cien­cy of our cut­ting edge tech­no­log­i­cal ap­proach and in­ter­na­tion­al best prac­tice.

The com­mu­ni­ca­tion fac­tor was a main com­po­nent to the en­tire op­er­a­tion. Me­dia man­age­ment and pub­lic aware­ness were in­te­gral to our brand man­age­ment prac­tices. This as­pect was ex­pert­ly man­aged by the corp comms head and his team.

The sup­port and re­source­ful­ness from the na­tion­al co­or­di­nat­ing team at the Hy­att Re­gency was out­stand­ing. There wasn’t a day that went by with­out their sup­port and in­put of ad­vice.

Our med­ical teams both from TRI­CARE and SO­MA were out­stand­ing. There were times that in pour­ing rain and light­ning skies, these teams were out there pro­fes­sion­al­ly ex­e­cut­ing their roles with ex­pert pre­ci­sion.

Now I can’t give this ac­count with­out talk­ing about the PRO­MAN vol­un­teers and the events plan­ning team from ICRE­ATE. These peo­ple are a liv­ing ex­am­ple of pro­fes­sion­al­ism and pa­tri­o­tism. They were the movers and shak­ers of the op­er­a­tion. From sim­ply meet and greet, forms dis­tri­b­u­tion, traf­fic man­age­ment to op­er­a­tions plan­ning and for­eign lan­guage trans­la­tors, hats off to the events plan­ning team.

I can’t ac­count with­out recog­nis­ing the fa­cil­i­ty man­age­ment and the MTS staff at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Aqua Cen­tre and the Cy­cle Dome. They were ex­treme­ly sup­port­ive and ac­com­mo­dat­ing. Giv­ing up their space and ad­just­ing as the op­er­a­tions pro­gressed.

The pub­lic se­cu­ri­ty and pub­lic safe­ty as­pect was well man­aged and manned on a dai­ly ba­sis by our hard work­ing and ded­i­cat­ed po­lice of­fi­cers and fire of­fi­cers, they pro­vid­ed yeo­man ser­vice.

The en­tire es­tate and fa­cil­i­ties were un­der the watch­ful vig­i­lance of two out­stand­ing pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­nies. The G4S team, who pro­vid­ed their ser­vice for the first half of the op­er­a­tions du­ra­tion, and then the EB­SL team who took up the sec­ond half. These two plat­forms were the bedrock of pro­fes­sion­al­ism and their pro­fi­cien­cy gave a keen sense of safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty for all.

The Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment and the DMU from the Cou­va/Tabaquite Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion can­not be left out. The Min­is­ter per­son­al­ly reached out to us and of­fered the sup­port of his teams, who pro­vid­ed a rapid re­sponse ca­pa­bil­i­ty in the times of threat­en­ing weath­er and high risk chal­lenges.

I must men­tion the mon­u­men­tal sup­port of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UTT) and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cadet Force (TTCF) adults for send­ing vol­un­teers to man the com­mand cen­tre — the main hub of co­or­di­na­tion for the op­er­a­tions. I salute Pro­fes­sor Prakash Per­sad and Mrs San­dra Ganess of the UTT. I recog­nise and am eter­nal­ly grate­ful to Lt Colonel Ronald York, the com­mand­ing of­fi­cer of the TTCF and Lt Cm­dr Blair Fer­gu­son, your ready to serve ap­proach was in­deed an in­te­gral com­po­nent and con­tributed to our brand of ex­cel­lence.

The com­mand cen­tre pro­vid­ed a sys­tems dri­ven sit­u­a­tion­al aware­ness with a re­sponse and ca­pac­i­ty “tool box” to dif­fuse, ad­dress and counter any un­to­ward cir­cum­stances that erupt­ed dur­ing our dai­ly op­er­a­tions. It was cri­sis man­age­ment and re­silience at its best.

Beans and bul­lets we called it in the mil­i­tary, but our lo­gis­tics staff were hands on and pro­vid­ed 24/7 cov­er­age all the time. This re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in­clud­ed en­sur­ing that our clients were re­freshed, en­ter­tained and served and all mem­bers of the staff were fed dai­ly. The cater­ers did a fab­u­lous job.

Sani­tis­ing and clean­ing every 15 min­utes, the Jani King jan­i­to­r­i­al staff were above board and al­ways will­ing to as­sist, en­sur­ing a hy­gien­ic and cleaned en­vi­ron­ment all the time. Now, al­so in­clud­ed was the staff that had the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the wash­room fa­cil­i­ties, a true rep­re­sen­ta­tion of com­mit­ment and ded­i­ca­tion to du­ty.

Mind you, the en­ter­tain­ment for the clients pro­vid­ed by the MHTL Star­lift was em­braced and ap­pre­ci­at­ed by all. This was a sooth­ing fac­tor and in­deed el­e­vat­ed our cul­tur­al as­pect, high­light­ing the na­tion­al in­stru­ment in all its glo­ry.

But as we have all grown to ac­cept, all good things must come to an end. The ex­pe­ri­ence of co­or­di­nat­ing this op­er­a­tion al­lowed me to re­alise that every sin­gle mem­ber of staff was not on the ground for du­ty, but in fact, were on the ground be­cause of de­vo­tion. A pas­sion and a love for what they were called to do.

With­out com­plaint and with warm, hearty smiles, there was an at­mos­phere of to­geth­er­ness and fam­i­ly. An en­vi­ron­ment of com­mit­ment and stick-to-itive­ness. We all knew that we weren’t on a project, but on a ser­vice to peo­ple. This was an op­por­tu­ni­ty of rais­ing the ban­ner of T&T and fly­ing the flag of ex­cel­lence. The Min­istry of Health and the strat team along with the PRO­MAN task force have shown that it can be done and done well with a well-knit ta­pes­try of co­or­di­na­tion and love for what you do.

Thank you PRO­MAN for al­low­ing me the op­por­tu­ni­ty to serve.

There will be oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ties and our paths will cross again. Here’s wish­ing all the team mem­bers God’s speed in all your fu­ture en­deav­ours.

We did it! Thank you for your ser­vice!!